The company’s early success has spawned from an experienced team of five, implementing a well thought-out, savvy, business strategy and giving customers more for their money, with high-quality products to rival any competitors.

“We started this business with a clear and simple strategy,” says director in charge of sales and marketing, Geoff Nathan. “We had to find the best quality products available, structure our business to minimise overheads, and provide quick delivery in an industry most would recognise as over-serviced,” he says.

Minimising overheads and providing the best of the best, is no easy task in the current industry climate of declining margins and cash flow issues, as well as higher stock prices, making business tough and profits tight. So how has such a young company managed to hold firm in the prevailing economic conditions?

Looking back on the 12 months of operation, Nathan says the secret for the company’s success has so far proven to be the experience of the company’s employees and the application of their extensive knowledge to the businesses operation. He says, with solid working experience, Triangle staff continue to give customers, exactly what they need.
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To demonstrate just how much experience abounds in the company’s ranks; firstly Nathan’s, 25 years of experience in the industry, in national sales roles with leading Paper Merchants Spicers and Edward’s Dunlop, has given him an expert sense for the business of paper.

Then there’s the company’s director, Stuart Hardeman. Hardeman’s 35 years experience in dealing with overseas paper mills, in the competitive copy paper market, has seen him develop sister company Triangle Corporation into a truly national company.

With 35 years industry experience notched in his own belt, Triangle’s logistics and distribution manager, Peter Hunt, spent several months visiting mills around the world, finally narrowing the field to four potential suppliers – to make sure the new company’s products were second to none.

Hunt’s background as a partner of a busy colour printer and previous experience as sales manager of Spicers Paper, provided the unique advantage to the company in developing the Triangle product portfolio from a paper seller and a paper buyers perspective. As a result of his efforts, printers get a superior quality product when they buy the Xtreme Gloss and Xtreme Matt art papers, (the company’s flagship products).

According to Hunt, the Xtreme Gloss and Xtreme Matt art papers reduce the cost to printers because of their superior bulk and have a better opacity because they are made with more wood pulp than other brands of paper.

“While we struggle to buy as well as the established merchants, we do have a market advantage with the exceptional bulk and opacity of Xtreme,” he says. “Many paper mills today are cutting costs and are using less wood pulp, creating exceptionally white and glossy papers as they increase the coating percentage; however they lack real bulk and opacity,” he explains.

“Xtreme has enabled many of our customers to be able to drop down a grammage, say from 128 gsm to 115 gsm, and reduce the cost of the print job to their customer – without reducing their profit margin and cutting machine rates,” he says.

To compete with high volume national merchants, Triangle have deliberately restricted their product range to Gloss and Matt Coateds, Laser Offset, One-sided and Two-sided Art Board, and have recently added an 80gsm Coated sheet to fill what was perceived as a gap in the market place.

“Our strategy is to provide printers with at least 80 percent of their paper requirements. That is, to run deep stock levels without the expense of slow moving lines such as specialties. We concentrate on papers that make printers their profit in their day to day operations,” says Nathan.

Triangle Paper’s first 12 months have been an education for its principals. While the Paper Merchant Industry is highly competitive, Nathan is excited by what the company has achieved, and is looking forward to uncovering more opportunities.

“We have gained the support of some of Melbourne’s largest printers who enjoy dealing with Triangle, because of our depth of experience and our ability to act decisively. The support from the general print community has been terrific. I believe this is simply because we offer a value for money package; quality, service and price, and we are easy to do business with,” says Nathan.

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